


Late Realisation

by Zero1606



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 19:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10543017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zero1606/pseuds/Zero1606
Summary: The Champions were making a stop at Rito village and Revali realises that he may have made a mistake.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something short and it still turned into 2000 words. Sometimes writing short is harder than writing long works.

The champions were making a stop in Rito village to restock their supplies before heading to the next spring. Seeing that they were in a protected environment it was one of the few instances that Link left Zelda’s side, something the princess was obviously enjoying.

“You seem quite happy that ‘the hero’ has left you alone. Isn’t it nice to enjoy my home without him breathing down your neck every moment?” Revali was stretching his wings and enjoyed the warm sun while they rested on one of the platform that were used for take-off.

“It really is refreshing to get away from him for a while.” The princess wasn’t the biggest fan of her appointed knight and the Champions, including Link, knew that.

“Don’t be so hard on him, he is only doing his job.” “Urbosa is right. Link is a nice person if you take the time to get to know him.”

“Speaking of the little guy, where is he? Usually he checks on us from time to time.” Daruk was sitting the farthest from the edge, not because he was afraid of heights, but because he didn’t trust the wood to hold him.

“Probably bothering my tribesmen. He is always acting strange around us Ritos, I don’t know what he has against us.” Mipha tried very hard to laugh quietly behind her raised hand at Revali’s ruffled feathers, which came as a shock to the others. Usually she would be too polite to do something like this. Revali ruffled his feathers and glared lightly towards Mipha. “What is so funny about your boyfriend’s hatred against my people?”

Now she didn’t even cared about the looks, she started to laugh loudly. “D do you really think Link hates R Ritos?” She managed to say between laughs. “Well he is always acting strange and reserved around us, so yeah.” Now his glare had turned into a look of confusion.

She whipped a tear from her eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm herself down before she spoke again. “I’ve known him for a very long time and the only thing he ever came close to hating was the fact that he was Hylian.” The others gave her confused looks and she cared to elaborate.

“You know that Link spend the majority of his childhood with us Zoras before he went to Castle Town to become a knight like his father?” They had skimmed that topic a while back when the question arose how a simple knight knew the Zora princess on first name base.

“Back then he hadn’t took his oath yet so he was much more talkative. I remember the conversations he had about the fact that he wished he was a Zora. While he wasn’t a bad swimmer for a Hylian, compared to even the youngest of us, he was clumsy and slow.”

She moved a bit to the side to escape the moving sun and then continued. “He hated that he couldn’t keep up and we had to slow down for him. Hylians are well versed when it comes to land travel, but that wasn’t what he wanted.

Coming back to the Rito topic. There was a thunderstorm going on and we had to stay inside the royal chambers because father didn’t want us to get hit by lightning. Having nothing else to do we rummaged through the private library of my mother when he found a book on different races that inhabit Hyrule.

After reading the passages about Zoras and Hylians for a few times we continued threw the book until he came to the Rito.” She knew that she had captured Revali’s attention with her trip down memory lane. He may try to seem like he isn’t interested, but she knew him long enough to see the small signs that he was just acting that way.

“I’ve never seen him as excited as he was that moment and I’ve seen him getting hyped because my father when swimming with us and taught Link a few moves in the water. ‘Mipha look! There are bird persons out there and they can fly. That is so cool!’” She managed a good impression of Link’s voice, sadly no one recognized it besides her.

Revali’s feathers looked much more plush than usual, was he liking the fact that Link had spoken that way about his people? “I remember how exited he was after hearing that a Rito was going to be part of our group. ‘Can you belief that I’m finally going to meet one. It must be a wonderful feeling to be able to fly.’ When you turned out to be the way you are towards him he was crushed. He likes being here because the other Ritos are nicer to him and willing to answer his questions without any rude remarks.”

He remembered one of the few times Link had asked him a question in, he had been using sign language because he wasn’t permitted to talk with the princess around. It had been a simple question about the dexterity he had with wings for arm and he had taken it as an insult and started to belittle the knight in front of the others. The knight mask had, for a fraction of a second, been broken and if he had blinked he would have missed the hurt expression. Afterwards Link had stayed away from him, which only fuelled his dislike for the Hylian even more.

Urbosa shook her head as she too remembered that day. For a voe, Link was a good person and didn’t deserve most of the hardship he got. “So he is currently walking around the village asking questions to random Ritos because our friend here, was a dick towards him?” She lightly punched Revali on the shoulder, making him flinch away from her in case she got really mad.

“Link is such a curious person when it comes to other cultures. Did you never notice that he was asking Daruk and me about our culture? Hell he even asked me to teach him our traditional dance, which by the way he is surprisingly good at.” Mipha blushed, something that thankfully wasn’t very noticeable thanks to her red scales. She had been the first one he had shown his newly acquired skill to.

“He even tried to wrestle with me. Didn’t turn out very well, but he managed to last a few seconds against me. That is something to be proud of.” Daruk piped in while he was still looking uncomfortable in his position.

“He only wanted to know about you so that he wouldn’t do something out of habit that would be considered rude in your culture and you made him feel like dirt for him efforts.” Revali didn’t like being attacked from all sides, at least Zelda wasn’t joining the conversation on Link’s side.

The princess was sitting at the edge of the platform, her legs were dangling around as she looked over the landscape with her Sheikah Slate. She lowered the slate and turned towards them. “I’ve spotted Link.” The others came towards her, well Daruk stood up to also get a look at what Link was doing.

Link had donned traditional Rito clothing and was talking to a white Rito that Revali was all too familiar with. “Do you know the Rito?” “Yes, that is Tebata. He and I competed for the position of Champion, of cause he isn’t nearly as good in the air and with a bow like me. What is Link doing, talking to him?”

The duo continued to talk, Link made a few gestures and the Rito nodded. Suddenly Link got way more excited that the group, minus Mipha, had ever seen him. “What are they talking about?” Revali had started to click with his beak, a rather aggressive act in Rito culture, not that the others would know that.

The white Rito nodded a last time, then turned around and got to his knees, offering his back to Link. “He wouldn’t,” green eyes narrowed at his companion and his former rival. Link carefully stepped towards the Rito and wrapped his arms around his neck, together they wobbled towards the edge of their platform and jumped.

It took much more restrain than he would admit not to jump after them. A few seconds later both of them rose from their fall and spiralled upwards to the sky. For a few minutes they looked clumsy, it was hard to fly with an unknown weight on your back after all, but soon they managed to steady themselves and their flight looked much more smoothly. They circled the village a few times, did a few loops and spirals and even some free falls. Tebata wasn’t as graceful in the air as other Ritos, he was a warrior not dancer after all, but their flight drew the attention of others.

While they were friendly people, carrying someone on your back wasn’t something you see Ritos do very often. Hatchlings were pointing towards the usually stoic warrior that laughed together with the Hylian in the air as he did a downwards spiral. I looked like they had fun together. “Revali, could you stop that clicking noise? You are distracting me from watching.” Mipha had a smile on her face as she saw her oldest friend getting one of his oldest wishes fulfilled.

He hadn’t even noticed that he had started clicking at Tebata and quickly held his beak shut with his wing. There was no way he was jealous that Link wouldn’t even ask him first, sure he would have laughed at him, but that was their thing. He cared about the Hylian as much as he cared about the others, surely he must know that. It was just friendly bantering, nothing more. His dislike for the knight had long vanished after he noticed that he knew how to yield that blade of his.

With a final spiral the duo landed and Link embraced the Rito in a tight hug. Revali couldn’t read lips, but seeing that Link was actually talking to Tebata was enough to hit him in the wrong spot.

The white Rito bowed and then grabbed a bow from nearby and lead Link towards the way to their archery range. “Looks like he finally made that Rito friend he dreamed of. It is always nice to see that he still managed to follow his dreams, even with his position. Makes me hope for my own dream.” Mipha stared into nothing for a few seconds and played with the bit of cloth she had bought from the local merchant to repair Link’s shirt with.

“We will talk later, I wanted to speak to the head healer and see if she can teach me something about Ritos. If something manages to hurt you I need to be prepared. Come Daruk, she is residing on the lowest floor, there is no way you can break something down there. Besides you still need to tell me a thing or two about that heat resistance you talked about.”

The Goron nodded, all too happy to get to sturdier ground and together they left their resting spot for the last hours. Shortly afterwards Urbosa managed to pry Zelda away from her readings. “Come princess, you need a break and we still need supplies for our next trip,” with only light protest on Zelda’s side she dragged the younger one towards a nearby shop.

Only Revali remained on the platform, playing with the string of his bow while looking towards the training grounds. He and Tebata were both orphans and once good friends until he took their friendly competitions too seriously. His social life got more and more ignored and he only dreamed about becoming a grand warrior so that he may overcome the fact that he came from nothing and maybe he would find a mate along his way to the top.

In the end he got only part of his wish. Without question he was the best in the air and even without a bow he was a competent fighter for Rito standards. Sadly his demeanour drove the others away and only the Elder really talked to him these days.

He had been so excited to become part of a group again, he even read about their different cultures to be able to fit in better.

Then came the first meeting, he was dressed in the finest clothing his village had to offer and gracefully stepped into the room where they would meet the King for the first time as a group. A young Hylian boy had come towards him, his blue eyes shined with excitement and started to ask question in the sign language that all races shared. He knew that the boy could talk and the fact that he wouldn’t talk to him together with him questioning his dexterity made him forget about making new friends and he fell back into his old ways.

Seeing his old friend walk away with Link made him realise that this was the second friendship his pride had ruined and this one hadn’t even begun.


End file.
